Core77

At the turn of the 21st century the Raelians captured the world's attention with the suggestion that human cloning was being attempted within their ranks. The notion that we can reproduce the precise DNA of another being, has inspired great science fiction, real scientific discovery, and a lot of controversy. The world of design now has its own cloning story: enter the RepRap 1.0 (short for Replicating Rapid prototyper), designed by Adrian Bowyer to produce the majority of its own component parts. Bowyer's RepRap 1.0, nicknamed "Darwin," evolved out of the desire to realize John von Neumann's mid-20th century proposal for a "universal constructor" -- that is, a machine that could copy itself. While the RepRap only reproduces its component parts, still requiring human assembly (leaving the dream of self-assembly yet to be realized), Bowyer points out that humans are themselves excellent assembly machines.

Earlier this year, Bowyer and his team at Bath University in the UK successfully produced the first RepRap offspring, which subsequently produced the first RepRap "grandchild." There are now RepRaps spanning the globe and Bowyer is busy developing the RepRap 2.0, "Mendel", which will offer a number of refinements on the "Darwin."

Bowyer believes that the RepRap can create "wealth without money" through its ability to self-reproduce quickly and cheaply, all the while minimizing industrial manufacturing. As Bowyer argues in his RepRap manifesto:

So the replicating rapid prototyping machine will allow the revolutionary ownership, by the proletariat, of the means of production. But it will do so without all that messy and dangerous revolution stuff, and even without all that messy and dangerous industrial stuff. Therefore I have decided to call this process Darwinian Marxism...

The promise of the RepRap is tantalizing, but we will have to wait and see exactly what besides RepRaps the RepRap makes and how this will liberate the proletariat. But it surely would be something if design could drive real revolution without all "that messy" stuff.